"American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion," implored the founding document of Young Americans for Freedom: "does it serve the just interests of the United States?" Forty-six years later, no diverse gathering of conservatives would be able to agree on a concise articulation of the desired aim of American foreign policy. One group wants America to serve as a means to other nations' ends. Another group believes America an end in itself. Both groups call themselves conservative.

A frontpage story in the Washington Post details "conservative anger" over the Bush administration's foreign policy. "Conservatives complain that the United States is hunkered down in Iraq without enough troops or a strategy to crush the insurgency," the piece contends. "They see autocrats in Egypt and Russia cracking down on dissenters with scant comment from Washington, North Korea firing missiles without consequence, and Iran playing for time to develop nuclear weapons while the Bush administration engages in fruitless diplomacy with European allies. They believe that a perception that the administration is weak and without options is emboldening Syria and Iran and the Hezbollah radicals they help sponsor in Lebanon."

George Will, who labels such criticism "so untethered from reality as to defy caricature," subscribes to a different brand of conservatism that has been critical of Bush's visionary foreign policy, citing the disastrous Iraq campaign as evidence of the dangers of nation building. Will writes in his current column that "elections have transformed Hamas into the government of the Palestinian territories, and elections have turned Hezbollah into a significant faction in Lebanon's parliament, from which it operates as a state within the state. And as a possible harbinger of future horrors, last year's elections gave the Muslim Brotherhood 19 percent of the seats in Egypt's parliament."

YAF's Sharon Statement, penned by M. Stanton Evans at a gathering at William F. Buckley's Connecticut estate, brought traditionalists, libertarians, and anti-communists together under a common banner. Might the seeds of the current conservative foreign policy schism be the natural consequence of uniting the crusading, liberation-oriented brand of anti-communist with the Washingtonian, non-interventionist libertarians and traditionalists?

Powerful. Excellent post, Dan.

Some people I know would say that the conservative foreign policy is the synthesis of the two, because it is in our just self-interst to crusade for freedom abroad.

I think those people are crazy, or at least hysterically optimistic. But that's what they think.

I suspect that I am one of Skeptic's "crazies." I assert that it is in our just self-interest to promote stability abroad and that freedom (properly structured) is one of those stable conditions. It might be the only such condition that can attract the needed support of allies at home and abroad.

My assertion is based on my belief that the lack of stability in foreign regimes, if unattended, will, almost certainly, someday be combined with weapons of mass destruction and hatred of Judeo-Christian values in a way which will jeopardize hundreds of millions of lives and the social structures which we rightly value.

I have asked, again and again, in various ways, at this site and among my "non-crazy" friends, to be given some reasonable foundation for doubting this pessimistic belief. To date, no one has even tried.

As I'm sure Skeptic's comments are directed to me, let me say that I don't give a damn about freedom in the Middle East. I do care about pacifying the Muslims. An element of that pacification has to involve controlling regimes. And to that extent, I think neo-conservatives are correct, e.g., http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/433fwbvs.asp

DocMcG believes he's pessimistic for insisting on stability. Stability=good; I agree. OK. But what is hysterically optimistic is the idea assumed in his post but not mentioned: that we will somehow get stability from encouraging democracy and freedom in peoples who have no history of it, have acquired no cultural subtrate for it.

Ralph basically says the same. He doesn't give a damn about freedom. Good. He wants to control people. But how does interventionism in pursuit of establishing new regimes, free and democratic ones, help pacify and control uppity Muslims?

You two may have theories to answer this question, but the facts (the election results in the ME in the past few years) speak for me. If either of you really meant what you said, you wouldn't support the "neocon" policy, as Ralph calls it. I would rather call it Wilsonian or perhaps Napoleonic.

I didn't mention democracy and I admit I have no good set of instructions for how to create stability.

My point was that the idea of intervening in these affairs, far from being crazy, is completely rational. That we don't know how to do something, is a good reason for not starting a task that is inessential or that someone else will do. It is not a good reason to avoid trying a task that is essential and that no one else will do. And mistakes at the beginning of attempting such a task is not a good reason to quit.

Can there be a conservative foreign policy if we accept that conservatism is not an ideaology?

Anyways, I'd say a conservative foreign policy would define american interest rather narrowly and has a distaste for grand schemes.

"That we don't know how to do something, is a good reason for not starting a task that is inessential or that someone else will do. It is not a good reason to avoid trying a task that is essential and that no one else will do. And mistakes at the beginning of attempting such a task is not a good reason to quit."

Well said, Doc.

I do not know what to do, but I am sure that something needs to be done, and that there is little time to do it. So I'd rather us do something, even though the effects are uncertain, than sit idly by and watch our enemies gain the means to destroy us.

Our foreign policy should "promote stability." Well, we are doing a great job of that. Invading countries usually stabilizes them . . . or doesn't it? Actually it breeds nationalism, and long-term antipathies, think of what the muslim teenager will think of us the rest of his life once we kill his mother and father and little sister in a bombing raid.

We fear "wmds," but their is only one actual WMD, the nuclear one. So far we are the only country that has ever used one on anybody. No regime would ever willingly allow terrorists to gain their nukes b/c the retaliation by us would be sickening. It is just as unlikely that any terrorist group would be able to make spectacular use of a nuclear device, certainly one which would actually "jeopardize hundreds of millions of lives and the social structures which we rightly value." For example, NYC has 8 million inhabitants and even if a terrorist were able to detonate a nuclear device here not everyone would be killed. There is no Soviet Union capable of delivering anything close to "mutual assured destruction."

The fears expressed here and that are at the heart of the current foreign policy are irrational fears. They are unreasonable and the fact that Ralph and Doc humbly admit that they do not know what to do in this given case specifically, is no basis for imprudent violence. If you can't specify what "should be done" that is honest and humble of you. But you can't then claim that "intervening in these affairs . . . is completely rational" b/c you have already admitted to the inability to form a prudential judgment of what practical actions should be taken. In such a situation where prudence can apparently give you no guidance the conservative should say . . . "Don't just do something, stand there!" The reason for taking this stance is that if your prudence has failed you then you likely have a poor understanding of either the particulars of a situation or the moral principles at work, or both.

But let's look at this rhetoric of "social structures we rightly value" more closely. I think that there is a decent and basically natural patriotism on the part of hawkish conservatives, but one that again is unreasonable and does not conform to the reality of life in modernity, let alone the specific example of modern America. For just the most glaring examples, the slaughter of western babies at a sickening pace through chemical and invasive abortion, the glorification and cultural deification of sodomy, and the socialist destruction of the family (Big Brother's takeover of our lives). How can you turn off your domestic cultural conservatism and traditionalism when looking abroad at poor muslim countries? Suddenly, the west is full of Richard Lion-hearts who simply want to "pacify muslims" by any means necessary in defense of . . . well, what exactly? And there are infidel Mohammedans frothing to destroy our "Judeo-Christian" civilization? But there has never existed anything called "Judeo-Christianity," there was Christendom, but ask the Marranos if that was a concatenation of the Jewish and Christian cultures. No that can't be it. Maybe we are fighting in defense of government enforced atheism, socialism, and a wonderful respect for hedonism (as embodied in our culture of death)? You say you aren't? But, that is the reality of life in America.

Is doing ANYTHING really better than doing nothing? Seems a rather difficult assumption to justify.

Doc and Ralph's argument boils down to,
We need to do something, and we don't have any better ideas, so let's do something that is almost guaranteed to make the problem worse and kills thousands of people in the meantime.

Pardon me if I'm not impressed by this as an argument for war, invasions, occupations, etc.

Brian: It is just as unlikely that any terrorist group would be able to make spectacular use of a nuclear device, certainly one which would actually "jeopardize hundreds of millions of lives and the social structures which we rightly value." For example, NYC has 8 million inhabitants and even if a terrorist were able to detonate a nuclear device here not everyone would be killed. There is no Soviet Union capable of delivering anything close to "mutual assured destruction."

Brian,

In my humble opinion, this is incredibly naive. You cannot measure the costs of such an attack in lives only. In addition to the millions of people that would die, imagine the economic consequences of a nuclear weapon detonated in Manhattan. The destruction of Wall Street alone would have a crippling effect on the national economy for decades. Billions of dollars would be lost. Suppose a nuclear weapon were detonated in D.C. while Congress was in session. Can you fathom the chaos that would ensue? Such consequencs, combined with the panic that would strike every other American city would be devestating on a grand scale.

And nukes are not the only danger of this sort. An EMP weapon detonated at 40,000 feet above the ground would permanently disable every micro-chip within a 300 mile radius. That would permanently disable the power grid, communications, automobiles, etc. One detonated at 300 miles above the ground would do the same for the entire North American continent.

Skeptic and Brian,

So what do you propose? Sit and wait for destruction? Downplay the impact of a nuclear attack? Pretend that 9/11 was a fluke? What? What's the "conservative" answer?

Ralph, I'd like to get at least some idea of how "untethered from reality as to defy caricature" you really are. Let's say we sit on our hands for the next 5 years. What future do you see? Would half the USA be a radioactive wasteland (which is how I understand your use of the word destruction)?

I believe that Iran will be producing nuclear weapons in 5-10 years. I also believe that Iran will proliferate nuclear weapons to groups that will attempt to attack the U.S. I do not consider either of these beliefs to be "untethered from reality as to defy caricature."

Ralph,

Again these aren't reasonable fears. EMPs to the extent they exist are only weapons that we (maybe) have, that technology is even more expensive and difficult to put together than nukes at this point.

As for your doomsday scenarios of nuclear attack of the U.S., again, it is highly unlikely that any terrorists will be able to get a hold of any nukes and use them. If we really let that fear determine our foreign policy, then c'mon, Pakistan/India/Russia/China/North Korea and Israel are all more likely sources of nukes for terrosists than is Iran. So, just for a couple of examples, why do we needlessly antagonize China by 1) trying to keep them from getting oil and 2) defending Taiwan; and mercilessly antagonize a weak and defensive Russia? Those policies belie your fears of terrorists w/ nukes as either country could easily let nukes slip into the wrong hands as a response to our antagonisms.

If you fear terrorists getting nukes then keeping a much lower profile in the ME along with resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict are the most prudent strategies for defusing Islamic terrorism. Along with, of course, interdiction efforts and diplomatic and intelligence ops.

As for imagining the chaos that would ensue if either NYC or DC were hit by a terrorist nuke, we have the historical means to try and imagine that scenario in Okinawa and Hiroshima. It is not pretty, but it does not spell the destruction of the nation, the regime, or the economy in any irrecoverable way. With your DC scenario, power would of course just devolve back upon the governors of the states, and w/ our military commanders all over the world, the ability to coordinate our Armed Forces and national guard would not be destroyed. As for the destruction of Wall Street, I think you are ignoring just how global corporate capitalism is these days. However, I actually think that trillions rather than billions would be lost if Manhattan were nuked but that effect on our economy would not be nearly as bad as you think, again b/c of the diverse loci of power in global capitalism. Anyway, if you are concerned with economic collapse then why council overreaching imperial adventurism? We will have wasted about 2 trillion on Iraq before all is said and done as is.

The basic point I am making is that even if these fears of yours were reasonable it would counsel an entirely different foreign policy then the one we are engaging in.

In a world with many unstable hate-filled regimes, we would be unable to know where a terrorist obtained his weapons. Even if we could know, in a world of vicious hate-filled dictators who cared little about the lives of their people, the threat of retaliation would be of little deterrent effect. But more importantly, nuclear weapons are not the only WMDs.

Vicious dictators and a small group of scientists with enough resources might design special large scale chemical or biological weapons and the protection from them. Such combinations might extort tremendous sums from individuals or nations. These nightmare scenarios could go on and on. The fact is that they are not science fiction any longer. With enough hatred, time, and money they are likely to occur.

When I talk about stability I mean the existence of regimes that have the ability to stop such actions within their borders and the intelligence to respond to reasonable incentives to do so.

Sometimes doing something does make the problem worse at first. If I'm making too little money I might go back to school and make even less for awhile. But the logic remains: We must do something and if we do the wrong thing at first, we must learn from our mistakes.

Brian argues that there are many things not worth conserving. While this is true, he is ignoring the many things that are worth conserving. We will not be able to conserve those things by assuming the past has the only lessons for us when it is obvious our ancestors never faced problems like these.

The conservative choice is to treasure what is good from our civilization and to use our reason to figure out ways to preserve and perpetuate those things in the face of unprecedented challenges.

It appears that democratization had a good effect on European countries and America. When instituted ours was a slaveholding society that kept women from the polls. Over the course of centuries democracy has brought about changes in these policies and others. This would hardly have occurred without participatory government. It also certainly did not happen overnight. Maybe foisting democracy is not a great idea, but things aren't quite cut and dried yet.

Brian,

I cannot respond in full at present, but one quick not an EMP weapons. A nuclear bomb IS an EMP weapon, i.e., a nuclear explosion emits an EMP. So, if a nuclear weapon were detonated at altitude, the blast wouldn't affect anything on the ground, but the EMP would permanently disable all electronics over a wide area.

Make that a quick "note on" EMP weapons.

Ralph,

You offer three alternatives to doing what we are currently doing: 1) Sit and wait for destruction?; 2) Downplay the impact of a nuclear attack?; and 3) Pretend that 9/11 was a fluke? This is just empty rhetoric . . . "sit and wait," "downplay," "pretend." Above you humbly admitted not knowing what to do and indicated that basically you simply want to "pacify Muslims" and avoid a horrific attack on us.

Well, I certainly agree that the major objective should be to avoid a horrific terror attack, and I agree with wanting muslims "pacified" if I can interpret that (to not sound so genocidal) as desiring a stable ME from which oil and not terrorists flow.

I am willing to start listing possible actions and strategies to deal with the threat of terrorism that are different from the mish-mash of hawkish policies currently being pursued but you and Doc don't seem much interested in hearing them if they conform to just war principles (which used to be quaintly considered an important part of "Christian values"). Your rhetorical alternative strategies indicate as much.

The Big Dig has killed more Americans in the U.S. in the past two years than Islamic terrorists have.

"The Big Dig has killed more Americans in the U.S. in the past two years than Islamic terrorists have."

The same statement could have been made on September 10th, 2001.

Ralph and DocMcG both seem to think that assuming the worst imaged events to be immanent is the best way to think through foreign policy and to argue about real lives and money.

In any case, IF you beleived it was likely that these horrors would come to pass were we to not intervene, our type of interventionism would still not do. I consider it "incredibly naive" on Ralph's part to think that destabilizing the regime, stoking the anti-semitism and anti-Christian tendencies and player-hating jealousies of the Islamic world, and then, THEN, giving them democracies would do anything to make these horrorific fairytales of yours less likely to come to pass. PERHAPS Roman imperialism would do some good, but we all know that Americans, neither the Christians nor the neopagan softies, have the stomach to crucify would-be rebels in desert outposts of the empire.

In other words, the only type of intervention that would do what you want is unavailable to us. The type of intervention that is available to the US is bound to (and has already) made the situation worse.

Yes, and vicious dictators with a small group of scientists and enough resources could create a "Doomsday Device," and then we could be faced with a "Mine-Shaft Gap." Or they could clone Hillary Clinton; the nightmare scenarios do proliferate, you are right.

But this isn't the way vicious dictators operate, they by definition are more concerned with their local power than with their people's welfare, hence, they respond to the threat of annihilation by . . . for example, destroying their stockpiles of WMD's and stopping their nuclear research program like Saddam did. Or, they build nukes as quick as possible so that they can be taken seriously by the world and avoid being threatened constantly with annihilation by huge nations like the U.S., like N. Korea has done.

It would not be that difficult to trace the origins of nukes; the parts involved and the transactions needed leave all sorts of trails. If we do not have the intelligence means (and the diplomatic means of other cooperative nations) to handle this task then THAT is a bigger problem for us than the possible nightmare scenarios you guys are losing sleep over.

How does one help along stable regimes in the ME which can control their borders (I can't help but point out the humor of expecting OUR government which refuses to secure its own border CREATING regimes elsewhere capable of and willing to control their borders)? By not fomenting pan regional identities and supranationalism. That is, stop uniting Muslims through support of the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. Stop uniting Muslims by maintaining bases throughout their holy land, and by maintaining an imperial presence. Stop the crap about wanting the Saudis and Egyptians, etc., to be "democrats." Accept that in order to establish stable regimes in the region then the borders drawn by the British after the demise of the Ottoman Empire are unlikely to be the borders of stable nations that can be expected to control their populations. The region is in flux and letting them reorder themselves to some extent is not necessarily a bad thing. Doing it for them w/ a total Armed forces worldwide of some 1.5 million soldiers is an impossibility.

Ralph,

The Big Dig hadn't killed anyone back then, my point is to provide perspective on the capability and effectiveness of radical Islamic terrorists. They just have not at all shown themselves to be anywhere near as efficiently capable of destruction as you think they are.

The issue is over what constitutes reasonable, prudent, and JUST (sorry that I keep being a stickler for Christian principles, I just want to preserve those for some old-fashioned sentimental reason) means of continuing to frustrate the ambitions of terrorists. That money monitoring program recently treasonously exposed by the MSM is one good example of a good method. I am sure we can agree on any slew of good methods.

The one we disagree on is what seems to me a manifestly failed (and I say necessarily so) policy of near random invasions, attacks, destabilizations, and calls for elections. Seriously, do the ME policies of the Bush regime make any sense to you? I mean as a whole, taken altogether and looked at. I keep thinking wtf are they doing over there? And focusing on the ENDS of either stable regimes or avoiding a nightmare attack just does not work in making sense for me of the MEANS being employed.

Yes. Realism is conservative foreign policy.

"Can there be a conservative foreign policy if we accept that conservatism is not an ideaology?

Anyways, I'd say a conservative foreign policy would define american interest rather narrowly and has a distaste for grand schemes." -Obi Juan

That conservatism is not an ideology is the silliest campfire tale probably ever to come out of the movement. If a Liberal, who believes that Liberty is the highest possible political aspiration, subscribes to an ideology, and an Egalitarian, who believes that equality is the highest possible political aspiration, subscribes to an ideology, than a conservative, who believes that tradition is the highest possible political aspiration, certainly does subscribe to an ideology.

On Iraq and conservative foreign policy: There are really only two options, in the wake of Saudi Arabia telling the US to remove its bases from the Kingdom. Take some kind of decisive action to give America a new regional base of operations, and to reassert America's regional dominance, or watch as China, Russia, or both, do the same in the most strategically vital area in the history of the world. Its really as simple as that. A vote against the Iraq War is a vote in favor of the decline of the USA as a world power. If one defines conservative foreign policy as a foreign policy concerned first and foremost, indeed to the exclusion of all else, with American national interest, than there is no question that conservative foreign policy would be in favor of the Iraq War.

AS Herman has asked that I respond in a thorough way as to why conservatives--real conservatives--don't embrace ideology, I will keep my words brief here (and save the more complete answer for a regular post). Ben writes: "If a Liberal, who believes that Liberty is the highest possible political aspiration, subscribes to an ideology, and an Egalitarian, who believes that equality is the highest possible political aspiration, subscribes to an ideology, than a conservative, who believes that tradition is the highest possible political aspiration, certainly does subscribe to an ideology."

Within your assertion explaining why conservatism IS an ideology, you provide the best reason why it ISN'T. "Equality" is an idea, an abstraction. "Tradition," on the other hand, is another way of saying "what's worked in the past"--at least that's what the good traditions are. In other words, people who base their views on the tried and the tested, experience, and history aren't ideologues. They are practical people who rely on concretes instead of abstractions. That's what a true conservative is even if so many people expropriating the popular label "conservative" don't mesh with that general attitude.

I still owe Herman a more complete discussion of that subject, which will come in a regular post sometime this fall (my apologies, I'm too busy now). For anyone who can't wait that long, read Intellectual Morons.

Brian,

Your mockery of "nightmare scenarios" falls flat in the light of 9/11. Before two jet-liners were flown into the Twin Towers, that scenario was as unlikely as the ones you compare to cloning Hillary Clinton.

"It would not be that difficult to trace the origins of nukes; the parts involved and the transactions needed leave all sorts of trails."

You mean the parts of the warhead AFTER it has gone off? I'm no expert on ordinance, but I'm guessing there isn't much left of an exploded nuclear weapon.

Your amusement about controlling borders stems from a confusion about control. There just aren't any Hezbollah-style groups in Texas firing rockets into Nuevo Laredo.

And your concern for the peace-loving Palestinians suffering at the hands of the ruthless Israelis is touching. I understand that part of your ME policy would be to let the Muslims push the Jews into the sea in the hopes that, having retaken "occupied Palestine," they would have no more cause for strife with the U.S. I'm not convinced.

Perhaps you havn't noticed the Muslim invasion of Europe. The decades-long war between Russia and Islamic terrorists in Chechnya. The movement of Muslim extremists into Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Sudan and Ethiopia). And don't forget the strong Islamist movements in Southeast Asia (e.g., Indonesia and the Phillipines).

Pretty soon film directors in Western liberal democracies will have their throats slashed, Muslims will riot in Western cities over cartoons, and Paris will burn.

In my opinion we are already involved in a global struggle against an enemy that cannot be reasoned with or appeased. They must be contained and pacified. And at all costs, they must be prevented from obtaining the deadliest of weapons. That is the point of all this. We can live with terrorists hiding in caves. We cannot live with terrorists controlling states with limitless wealth.

"AS Herman has asked that I respond in a thorough way as to why conservatives--real conservatives--don't embrace ideology, I will keep my words brief here (and save the more complete answer for a regular post). Ben writes: "If a Liberal, who believes that Liberty is the highest possible political aspiration, subscribes to an ideology, and an Egalitarian, who believes that equality is the highest possible political aspiration, subscribes to an ideology, than a conservative, who believes that tradition is the highest possible political aspiration, certainly does subscribe to an ideology."

Within your assertion explaining why conservatism IS an ideology, you provide the best reason why it ISN'T. "Equality" is an idea, an abstraction. "Tradition," on the other hand, is another way of saying "what's worked in the past"--at least that's what the good traditions are. In other words, people who base their views on the tried and the tested, experience, and history aren't ideologues. They are practical people who rely on concretes instead of abstractions. That's what a true conservative is even if so many people expropriating the popular label "conservative" don't mesh with that general attitude." -Dan

What a "good" tradition is is hardly agreed upon, and conservatives do not generally adhere to just the "good" ones. Tradition isn't doing what has worked in the past, it is doing what has been done in the past, period.

But I do see what you mean. The Chinese communist party official is a conservative as much as the 18th century French monarchist.

Insofar as this is the case, conservatism may very will simply be useless as a label.

Ben: Whether the traditions are bad or good is irrelevant for the purposes of determining whether conservatism is an ideology--a set of beliefs based on mere ideas, abstractions--or not. Tradition, the past, the tested--these are not mere ideas. They are concrete occurances upon which we can base our general attitude. Thus, to embrace the conservative attitude, inclination, approach is certainly not to embrace an ideology.

I can see why "conservatives" who are, in fact, ideologues would be uncomfortable with this definition, but the aforementioned understanding of conservatism is Edmund Burke's, Abraham Lincoln's, and Russell Kirk's understanding of conservatism. It's not an idea spun from my head. It's the traditional understanding of conservatism.

It makes conservatism particuarly useless as an ideology, however, as anybody who is in favor of maintaining a status quo is a conservative.

An American who is in favor of maintaining a welfare state, social security, medicare, etc, etc, etc, is an American conservative. They support maintaining the status quo.

If a conservative is one who is in favor of maintaining the status quo, then what a conservative is changes everytime the status quo does. If Edmund Burke lived today, he could not be fairly called a conservative, using that definition.

It makes conservatism particuarly useless as a label*

In fact, it makes actually being a conservative almost impossible.

Say legislation A is proposed. It is a large piece of legislation that will somehow change the status quo. A conservative is obligated by his conservatism to fight against it as hard as he possibly can. But say he fails in his fight, and Legislation A is proposed. As a conservative, he is now obliged to become a fierce defender of Legilation A, because it is now the status quo.

When Legislation B comes up, which proposes to do nothing but revert the effects of Legislation A to the previous status quo, the conservative is now obliged to fight in the defense of Legislation A.

This makes it nearly impossible to label anybody a conservative. Indeed the only way to do it is if they are in favor of CERTAIN traditions and status quos, instead of just ANY traditions and status quos. At which point conservatism becomes an ideology.

Yes, Ben, the conservative favors what has worked in the past--the tried and the tested. Note that that is different from the status quo, a phrase that you introduced into the discussion only to then rebut it. That's called a strawman.

What's important is that the conservative bases his inclinations, approaches, attitudes on what's worked in the real world that exists and not the ideas--that's where we get the word ideology--that exist in some guy's head, even if that guy is really, really smart, like Bentham, or Marx, or Owen. That's why it's not an ideology, because it's based on experience and not ideas.

To bring Burke into the specific topic of this thread, one could say that Burke saw flaws in the French monarchy but believed overthrowing it would result in something worse. In more recent times, many leftists--Foucault in particular--supported replacing the Shah of Iran with the Ayatollah Khomeni. They did not know, as Burke did, that bad can sink to worse. In applying the doctrine articulated in Bush's second inaugural--reflexively supporting democracy over other forms of government--one could see how things could go from bad to worse in a great many authoritarian countries in the Middle East. In other words, I'll take King Abdullah over President Bin Laden.

"Yes, Ben, the conservative favors what has worked in the past--the tried and the tested. Note that that is different from the status quo, a phrase that you introduced into the discussion only to then rebut it. That's called a strawman." -Dan Flynn

In which case, there is no such thing as a conservative, because "what has worked in the past" is more or less 100% subjective. There is no universal agreement on what works. Social security is certainly a tradition that has been in America for a long time, and which has worked just fine up until now.

"What's important is that the conservative bases his inclinations, approaches, attitudes on what's worked in the real world that exists and not the ideas--that's where we get the word ideology--that exist in some guy's head, even if that guy is really, really smart, like Bentham, or Marx, or Owen. That's why it's not an ideology, because it's based on experience and not ideas." -Dan Flynn

Again, no agreement on what has worked. Saying that you support "What has been tried in the past and has worked" has about as many meanings as there are people you say it to.

Even if a conservative errs, and bases his approach to an issue on something that he thinks worked but really didn't, he's still basing his view on something concrete and not on an abstraction, a mere IDEA. This approach, which relies on actual experience rather than some dude's latest theory, is what--at its most bare bones--separates the conservative from the ideologue. You may find this approach insufficient for you, as your posts indicate that you do, but it's still the approach that conservatives have used for a long, long time, and it's still an approach that favors the experience that the past offers and rejects the abstractions that ideology offers. It is based on this that I, along with Burke, Lincoln, and Kirk, find conservatism to be the "negation of ideology." But Ben T wasn't around to persuade Burke, Lincoln, and Kirk of their errors, so perhaps it's unfair of me to invoke their names in support.

I understand that it drove Kirk, Burke, etc.

It ALSO drives communist party officials in China, Ayatollahs in Iran, etc. They are defending their own traditions, what they believe has been tested and true. To simply say that "We support what works" does not MEAN anything. A conservative is either a defender of ANY tradition, at which point everybody and nobody is a conservative, or he is a defender of SOME traditions over others, at which point he IS devoted to the concept that some ideas are preferable to others. One cannot defend certain ideas while rejecting others, and maintain that they don't follow any ideology.

"One cannot defend certain ideas while rejecting others, and maintain that they don't follow any ideology." Ben T

Now, of course some ideas are better than others-- e.g. the idea that the earth is more or less spherical is better than the idea that it is flat. But is it ideology that tells us so?

This is the question: what standard are we going to use to judge which ideas are better? Are we going, basically, to use theories (systems of ideas), or do accumulated experience, factual evidence, etc., matter too?

I understand. Insofar as that is the case, I agree: experiance should dictate policy.

BUT, what I am trying to say, is that people of MYRIDAD views believe this to be the case, not one set of views. It makes "Conservative" an almost impossible label. Everybody and nobody is a conservative using this definition.

bEN t: No. Some people use IDEOLOGY, even when experience's lessons suggest otherwise, to tell them what is right/wrong, possible/impossible, just/unjust in politics. SOME do it a little (run of the mill bleeding heart lib who want more welfare or $ for public schools), some people do it A LOT (Marxists). Perhaps we ALL do it a little. But YOUR position that conservatives do it EQUALLY with, e.g., Marxists, is unsupported, and I think unsupportABLE.

Skeptic and Dan,

I have to defend Ben-T here a bit. He is correct that in different societies and different cultures there can be and are groups which are correctly labeled "conservative" who are respecting traditions which in their estimation have worked well in their given cultures and societies. For example, Burke was a conservative and part of what he was interested in conserving in his day was the Anglican Church as the state religion, something that a conservative in America is not expected to do.

Ben-T,

What is causing confusion for you, I think, is taking this fact of apparently diverse "conservatisms" as signifying more than it does. Possibly you are hoping that there is a one size fits all politics that is universalizable for all times/cultures/places. If so, that's fine I guess, it probably makes you an idealist or a rationalist. Conservatives, however, don't think that is the case and generally have some form of an "organicist" view of politics. They are more historicist as well and this is another reason why you can label a group of people in Lebanon as "conservatives" just as fairly as you can a group in Canada, without the two sharing many specific political policies in common.

But to understand what Skeptic and Dan are telling you about what conservatism is you need to set aside the question of finding a universalizable politics as it seems to be tripping you up. Their point is that to find the conservative you have to look at WHY they stick to policy X and principle Y.

"bEN t: No. Some people use IDEOLOGY, even when experience's lessons suggest otherwise, to tell them what is right/wrong, possible/impossible, just/unjust in politics. SOME do it a little (run of the mill bleeding heart lib who want more welfare or $ for public schools), some people do it A LOT (Marxists). Perhaps we ALL do it a little. But YOUR position that conservatives do it EQUALLY with, e.g., Marxists, is unsupported, and I think unsupportABLE." -Skeptic

The idea that Conservatives mainly support just those traditions "that work" is a self-appointed honor. People who do not believe as you do would not agree with you that you are not an ideologue, or that you only support the traditions which work. Whether its even objectively true that those traditions you support work, is not relevant, since we are discussing how to effectively label a view, not the view itself.

Brian,

I understand what you are saying, that a conservative supports tradition, on the grounds that the tradition works. The point is that whether or not a tradition works is not agreed upon by really anybody.

A southern plantation owner in the Civil War era might defend slavery on the grounds that it was a longstanding tradition that had, thus far, worked. His slaves would probably take a different view.

Ben: You may not have picked this up, but you've already conceded that your argument is false. You state in one breath that conservatives are ideologues, and in the next breath that conservatives base their approach upon tradition. One can't follow from the other.

Fine if you reject experience as a guide, but don't confuse experience with ideas. The conservative relies on the concreteness of the former, even if it does lead him astray from time to time; the ideologue relies on the abstraction of the latter, particularly because it offers a false sense of purity and an a priori understanding of everything.